ABSTRACT
Necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC) is a devastating disease of infancy and the most common serious acquired gastrointestinal disease in the newborn infant. The term ‘necrotizing entero colitis’ was first coined in the 1950s when used to describe infants who died with necrotic lesions of the gastro intestinal tract, but it did not become recognized as a distinct clinical entity until the 1960s, when a number of authors began reporting their experience with this disease. With improvements in neonatal intensive care over the past four decades, the incidence of NEC is increasing as more babies born at the extreme limits of prematurity now survive. Recent estimates place the incidence at approximately 0.5 percent of all live births and at between 3 and 5 percent of low birth weight infants born prematurely. Concurrent with this increase in incidence has been an extensive amount of time and energy devoted to exploring the etiology and pathogenesis of this disease by a number of individuals and groups worldwide. Despite these efforts, our understanding of the processes contributing to the development of NEC remains limited.
